


Empty Teeth

by tawg



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers, References to Suicide, passing mention of Bobbi Morse/Clint Barton, roadtripping through the afterlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to get home and he wants her to help him. A bargain, a road trip, and camp fire stories under a night sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for [Sinope](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinope/pseuds/Sinope)'s fic challenge ['Putting a Smile on Phil's Face'](http://eponis.tumblr.com/post/58715849950/fic-challenge-putting-a-smile-on-phils-face), and is built on the ideas of [Wristcutters: A Love Story](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477139/) (a film that I thoroughly recommend).

There’s not really any taboo about asking how people got here. It’s usually the third question: What’s your name/where you from/how’d you do it? And then sometimes they come in and it’s so obvious how they died that you can’t quite work up the nerve to ask how they managed to do that intentionally. 

That’s what it’s like with this guy.

He comes in with a dark suit one that’s been made a few shades lighter with dust, and he’s got blood down his front but not quite enough to cover up the hole in him. He has sunglasses on, and he takes them off to peer around the dim, shitty restaurant where I work. His eyes stop on me for a long moment, and then he tucks the shades into his pocket and makes his way to an empty table. That’s how I know he’s government, the way he cases the joint. He hesitates before his sits down, eyeing off the sticky surface of a table that’s never going to be quite clean enough, and that’s how I know he’s new.

There had been an influx after New York. We only got second-hand accounts, but I could see why people had hit a level in life and just couldn’t go any further. Apparently there were some around who had done it once everything was settled. A few assurances that everyone back home was carrying on and not being dead were circulating around, but who really knew? If you send yourself here, what happens back there isn’t really your business anymore.

He sits down, and the way he keeps checking to see where I am lets me know that he’s going to talk to me one way or another, so I slap a serving towel over my shoulder and head over to get it out of the way. He asks if the coffee is good and I tell him that it’s shit. He orders a cup anyway, and a sandwich that will have seen better hours. I’ve got a job to do, even if it is mind-numbing, and I don’t want him cluttering up my peripheral vision. So when I take over his order I sit down on a wobbly chair and look at him expectantly. He doesn’t say anything. Takes a sip of shitty coffee, takes a bite of stale sandwich. Sometimes I wonder if there are people back home who ate so much shit that the stuff here tastes good. I doubt it, but the guy doesn’t gag like a lot of the newcomers do. Not that it means much. When it becomes apparent that he won’t start the ball rolling, I state the obvious.

“You’re government.”

“Was,” he corrects. “And so were you.”

I snort. “Barely. I did some freelance stuff.”

“And you were good at it.”

I’m not sure how to take that statement, so I sit, and stare, and watch him eat a sandwich that’s falling apart in his hands. Eventually he’s gone as far as he can go with the food. Dusts his hands off, wipes them down with a napkin that’s gritty, and frowns at the sour butter residue left on his hands. Yup. Definitely new.

“I have a request,” he says at last, wraps his hands around the coffee though I don’t know why because dollars to donuts it’s already cold. 

“Everyone does,” I reply, because it’s usually true. That’s how it works. There’s always something you want. Keeps you discontent.

“I want to talk to the People In Charge,” he says, all nice and neat, and I snort at him. He raises an eyebrow with a neat movement. I decide to be nice and explain. Since he’s new.

“Unless you mean my jackass boss, I don’t know that there is anyone in charge.” There are jobs that need doing and so people do them. It’s not exactly organised. Finding a store that’s open when you have the time to go to one can be impossible, but not exactly unfamiliar. The people who process you at the door are usually volunteers, drift to those white buildings because they can’t find anything else to do with themselves and free time is no luxury.

“There has to be a moderation system,” he replies. “To decide who ticked the right boxes to end up here.”

“Only one box you gotta tick,” I reply. My eyes fall to the hole in his chest, and I make no secret of staring at it. He’d ticked it good and hard.

“And yet,” he says, and leaves it there. And yet it’s not just how you died, it’s the intention behind it. And yet people come out of the buildings so there must be something inside. Everyone thinks it and most grow out of it. Some people never do, and they spend their days along the dry highways with their thumbs out, trying to get a lift to the next place along in the hopes that it’s somewhere better. 

“And yet, I don’t know anyone in charge,” I say flatly. “I don’t even know of anyone who has met anyone in charge. Just stories, and they’ve got no spine to them.”

“Maybe,” he says, which is probably as close to an agreement as he’ll get. “But it looks like I have plenty of time here, and I want to know for sure.” I stare at his face, waiting for the obvious. “I want your help,” he says at last, and I know he was hoping that he could avoid it.

“Sorry,” I say, rising up from the chair. I pause to dust the seat of my pants off, but there’s probably a smear of something or other on my ass. “I don’t know anything.”

“You have the skills to find out,” he replies. 

“I have a job,” I return. Some people love the freedom of being on the other side, some people cling to familiar things. I like routine. I might not like this one, but it’s better than some and better than being without.

“I can give you information,” he says, like that’s a currency in his pocket. “About things back home.” And that does make me pause. “I know who attended your funeral,” he continues. “I know some of the people you worked with. General information about the world at large.”

I bite at my bottom lip. “If I cared that much about people back home, I probably wouldn’t be here,” I reply.

He rests his elbows on the table and leans forwards, a shrewd look on his face. “You might not care,” he concedes. “But you’re curious.”

And that, unfortunately, is right on the money. I stare down at him for a long while before turning on my heel. I slap down my towel and then grab two bottles of soda out of the sweaty fridge behind the counter. I hand him one and jerk my head towards the door. 

“Come on then,” I say heavily.

A triumphant look crosses his face, but I get the narrow joy of seeing the moment when he realises that we can’t smile.

~*~

He tells me a story each night I travel with him. Never long ones, but never so short that I feel cheated. He does tell me about my funeral. He tells me what happened with the Gladiator project, with some of my friends from before. SHIELD missions are a little tricker. In those moments I watch his face, trying to gauge how much he’s keeping back. Bits and pieces, but whether they’re classified or irrelevant or so relevant that he’s saving them up I can’t tell.

In exchange, I find information. There are scraps of rumour and things that everyone knows. I track it back to something more solid, find the names of places these things went down, and then we go there. There are riots sometimes. Sometimes buildings collapse a little. Most people just keep on trucking when they get here, but things do go wrong. And in amongst all the mess and confusion, there are little glimpses of the People In Charge.

It’s not exactly an easy trip. The car breaks down. Gotta wait on the side of the road for someone to find us. Gotta stare at the car and wonder if it can be fixed. Gotta scratch our heads and wonder where the nearest mechanic is, how long it’ll take to get the parts, if the damn place is still open. Gotta admit, it’s a hell of a thing, a car like that breaking down like this. 

He’s always pretty direct with people. Asks if we can get a lift. Starts moving our bags across to their truck while I kick at the nearest tire and gotta shake my head. Gotta wonder how far we’ll get, if this is life on the road. And then, he steals the truck.

Theft doesn’t really happen here. You need to covet something to want to steal it, and who has the energy for that? Why set yourself up for another thing to go wrong? I guess you wouldn’t get punished. Who can really be afraid of a life sentence once you’re here of all places? So of course the kind Samaritans are baffled by their truck starting up and lurching forwards without their permission. He yells at me to get in, and I do, and we zoom off, leaving a cloud of dust and a shitty broken car behind us.

We have to pull over after about a mile so I can take the wheel. I guess driving’s pretty hard when half of your chest isn’t what it used to be. But I sit there in the driver’s seat for the rest of the day, turning it over in my mind. Stealing a car. Huh. The thought of it makes me buzz in a way I haven’t for a long time. Since before I got here. Huh.

I don’t know how long we travel together. Sometimes a day feels like a week. Maybe it is a week. It wouldn’t surprise me if time was like that. The only time here is wasted time, so it makes sense that it wouldn’t flow neatly. Eventually we go long enough that he has to start telling me stories about himself. I joke that his stock must be getting low by then, and he gives me a look that is a little sly and a little innocent. “Saving the best until last,” he tells me, and there’s enough delicacy in the way he always picks his words that I believe him.

And it’s not awful, getting around with him. We don’t fuck, because I have never found the energy to want that on this side and the hole in his chest is still wet and open. Sometimes the wind hits his chest and I swear I can hear a whistle as it goes through him. He’s still in the same suit, though he lost the tie a while ago and the watch hasn’t worked since he got here. But we sleep together, in a way. At right angles by campfires, our heads together. When he’d learned that the only things that don’t burn here are dry branches, he’d gotten this flat look on his face that just said ‘of course’. He’d probably fit in well enough if he weren’t so driven. I never ask what he wants with the PIC, but there’s only one reason people look for them – they don’t think they belong here. 

He makes faces in his sleep, like maybe he’s having bad dreams sometimes. I rarely dreamed back home and I sure don’t here. He always starts out on his back, then curls over during the night to face the fire, right hand pressing against his hole. And then he’ll shift and snuffle a little, and his face will smooth out. Not happy, because no one here is really happy. But at peace, a little. And I watch him until the fire burns down to embers and I let myself fall asleep. He wakes up before me, packs up the car and tries to work out how much farther to go. Maybe we get the same amount of sleep. Maybe he needs more of it because he goes somewhere good with his eyes closed. And maybe, a little voice deep in the back of my head says, we’ll be on this hunt forever. Maybe that’d be okay.

~*~

He’s running low on stories, looking ragged around the edges. I tell him that he’ll be resorting to recounting movies and TV to me soon. He looks a little sheepish, and admits that he was never an avid watcher of either, that I probably wouldn’t like his taste anyway. I nod at his grubby shirt, tell him that his taste in clothes definitely leaves something to desire.

“You like my sunglasses though.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “You’re not keeping them for long.”

He looks up at the darkness. No stars here, but he keeps looking for them. It’s hard to stay on course without stars and regular sunsets. I suspect there is no way to stay on course. We keep moving and keep finding breadcrumbs and who even knows where we’re headed. The whole point of this place is that no one goes anywhere.

And then, one night, he tells me the story of how I died. 

Little stones digging into my shoulder blades, and if not for the fire licking at the edge of my vision I would think that my eyes were closed, the sky was that black. And he tells me the simple little story of a mission gone wrong, and someone doing something very brave and it ending in a predictable way, and how he’d heard the recording of the scream cutting short. I frown up at the empty night sky, and there’s a shuffling crack that suggests he’s poking at the fire with a stick.

“And I know that wasn’t a new story to you, but this part is. When I realised where I was I started asking how I could get back. And I quickly realised that I needed someone with special skills, someone who could help me find answers. And there were a few people I could look for. You weren’t the closest.”

He’s silent for a while, and I break the silence because of the two of us I’m the one stewing in it. “So why come for me?” I ask. If he tells me it’s because I’m the prettiest, I’m gonna push him in the fire.

“Because of all the people I know of who could be walking around here, there’s only one person I don’t believe killed herself.” He says it levelly, like it’s being read off a card, like we’re miles and days and so much else further back in that shitty little café and he’s ordering a coffee and a sandwich and quietly aware that he may regret the two.

“I knew I was going to die,” I tell the night sky above me. “It’s called a suicide mission for a reason.”

“Yes,” he agrees. And he leaves it at that. Eventually he gives up on the fire and the stick, and stretches out on the dusty ground, jacket balled up under his head. He stares at the flames and I stare at the empty sky and neither of us get any sleep that night. If the darkness really is a night. 

I help him pack up the car in the morning. We’re set into a routine now. And it’s easy to stick with something familiar, but maybe that’s gotten me into enough trouble in the past that I’ve learned from it.

“This is our last day,” I tell him. “I get you to the next town on the list, and then I’m leaving you there.”

He nods. “One more night?”

I look at the sky, pretend that I can judge something from it. “No,” I say. “We’ll be there before dark. I’ll start back early.”

He looks along the length of road and I follow his gaze, wondering if I can see the glint of a city before the horizon. “Stay the night,” he says. “I’ve been saving a story for you.”

“Your last story was shit.”

“Everything is shit.” And that’s not untrue.

I press my mouth into a line. One night could easily become two and then three. He watches me as I decide it’s not worth it, waits until I’ve turned to tell him so before he adds, “It’s about Clint Barton.”

Well, I think. Well, shit. 

“Stay until sundown,” he says, trying to sweeten the deal. “Help me until dusk.”

“And then you tell me the last story?”

He nods. “And then we’re done.”

I press my lips hard together, wonder if I’m imagining the glint of the hot sun hitting iron roofs in the distance. He has a plan, obviously. But it’s one that will take daylight hours or less, and I could do with getting a new tape for the player at the next gas station – the current one tangles more often than it plays. I nod curtly, and get into the driver’s seat, and we hit the road.

~*~

As far as plans go, I’ve been killed by better ones.

The PIC turn up when things go wrong. So of course his plan is to do something worthy of their attention. I’d assumed that he was one of the government good guys, but he’s got a knack for being the calm in the middle of the chaos that makes me suspect it’s not his first time creating it. 

I mostly keep out of the way. I’ve spent the past however long seeing my reflection in only the rear vision mirror and the flash coating of his sunglasses. So I stand near a shop window and use the glass there to watch as I tug my fingers through my hair. I don’t think I’ve preened since just after I got here. Stealing a car. Doing my hair. Huh.

I didn’t think it would work. I figured that the fire would burn out and the riot would calm down on its own. But there’s screaming like I haven’t heard since I was alive, and below that is a cutting throb that feels like a terrified heartbeat. A chopper. No birds in this place but a helicopter descends, and people in white suits fall out of it like clowns bursting out of a mini. I stand by his side, my shoulder brushing his. He’s thrumming. I’ve never felt anyone here have that kind of energy running through them. He fixes the cuffs of his shirt a little. Always be in control of the small details. An agent even in death.

He takes his sunglasses off, folds them up neatly, and hands them to me before stepping into the fray. They seem so light and fragile in my hand. I wonder how he’s kept them for so long without breaking them. How anything could travel the same distance as us and still be intact. 

He grabs the arm of one of the PIC, has to fight to get the attention he wants but he’s not gone soft when it comes to stubbornness. There is a mess to be cleaned up and I guess he’s one big part of it, because the PIC makes a face but jerks a thumb to the helicopter, and that’s as clear an invitation as anyone will ever get.

I take two steps towards them, yelling out “Wait!” with more volume than I thought I had left in me. We stare at one another across a crowded square that’s covered in broken brick and bits of flaming blood. “You owe me a story,” I say, and my voice is plaintive but it carries across the wide, worn distance of several yards, makes it to his ears and he tilts his head at me, gives me a considering look.

“I’ll tell you on the other side,” he calls back. He’s distracted by a PIC shoving something into his face. A little square of card with something written on it. I can’t read what it says, but I know it’s exactly what we’ve been looking for because something in him lights up. He takes it carefully between rough and tacky hands, and his face shifts. It takes a while for me to understand. A hand pressed to my own mouth because it’s been so long since I’ve seen anything like it. 

A small, sweet curve of lips. And then his eyes meet mine for a moment. And then he’s gone.

~*~

I’ve long been used to people asking how I got here. It’s an easy way to get to know people, after all. But once I started wondering _why_ I got here it was impossible to stop. Steal a car, style my hair, search search search. I’ve got a man on the outside who owes me a day of work. I drive down the highways with the top down and sunglasses on and my teeth bared to the wind.

It’s not a smile. 

Not yet.


End file.
